European by design
Azure cost optimisation, built and run in Europe
CloudKnife is a Belgian FinOps platform for Azure. It finds oversized, idle and orphaned resources, explains every saving with evidence and a price tag, and carries out the changes you approve. The company is in Ghent and the platform is hosted in the EU.
A Belgian company
CloudKnife BV is based in Ghent, Belgium (VAT BE1036821023). It was founded by Gilles Uytenhove (CEO), Thomas Rosseel (CTO) and Jonas D’hollander (COO): cloud engineers first, founders second. CloudKnife is supported by imec.istart and Start it @KBC.
Where your data lives
CloudKnife is hosted on Microsoft Azure in West Europe, inside Microsoft’s EU Data Boundary, and processes your data within the European Economic Area. Where a provider transfers data outside the EEA, the data processing agreement covers it with EU-approved safeguards and lists every sub-processor and where it processes data, so your security and legal teams can check it line by line.
What CloudKnife does on Azure
- Compute. Sized to the job it does. We learn what each compute runs and when, then find the size and schedule that fit.
- Databases. Tuned to the load it carries. No database stands alone. We understand each one in the context of your architecture, then cut the waste without the slowdown.
- Storage. Matched to the data it holds. We learn how each disk and storage supports the workload, then match the tier and clear out what got left behind.
- Commitments. Commitments that pay off. Understand what each reservation and savings plan covers, get full use out of them, and make your next commitment with confidence.
Every recommendation shows its reasoning and data. Azure Advisor flags what might be cheaper; CloudKnife checks each change against your workload and your commitments, then helps you carry it out. See the pricing.
Recommendations that get carried out
Recommendations don’t gather dust on a backlog. You approve each change, or let Autopilot carry it out within the policies and IaC guardrails you set. Autopilot keeps adjusting your infrastructure as workloads drift, so the savings don’t go stale.
Automation is opt-in. You decide exactly what Autopilot may touch, and every change it makes is traceable, so a CIO or CFO can follow each saving back to the rule that allowed it.
Questions
Is CloudKnife a European company?
Yes. CloudKnife BV is a Belgian company based in Ghent, founded and run by cloud engineers. It is supported by imec.istart and Start it @KBC.
Where is my data stored?
The platform and its databases are hosted on Microsoft Azure in West Europe, inside Microsoft’s EU Data Boundary. Your data is processed in the EEA, and the data processing agreement lists the few cases where a provider may transfer it outside, with the safeguards that apply.
What does CloudKnife read from my Azure environment?
Your Azure resources, their usage metrics and their cost. That is what it needs to size each resource to its workload and put a price on every saving.
Will CloudKnife change things without asking?
No. Every change starts as a proposal that you review and approve. Automation is opt-in and follows rules you define, so you decide exactly how much you hand over.
Does CloudKnife support AWS and Google Cloud?
Azure today. The engine underneath is built cloud-agnostic, so other providers are on the roadmap.
Can I sign a data processing agreement?
Yes. The DPA is published on this site and lists every sub-processor, what it does and where it processes data.